Their 
Spirit 

By »? 

Robert 

Grant 



1& 



M 




CopyiightK^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/theirspiritsomeiOOgran 



THEIR SPIRIT 

SOME IMPRESSIONS 

OF THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH 

DURING THE SUMMER OF 

1916 



THEIR SPIRIT 

SOMJE IMPEESSIOXS 

OF THE ENGLISH AXD rRE:N^CH 

DURIXG THE SUMMER OF 

1916 

BY 

EGBERT GRANT 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

The Riverside Press Cambridgs 
IQ16 



.G67 



COPVRIGIrJT, I916, BY THE BOSTON TRANSCRIPT COMPANY 
COl'YKIGHT, 1910, BY KOBKKT GRANT 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published Wovember iqib 



p. 



srt 



NOV -6 1916 



CI.A446235 



PREFACE 

These impressions, contributed origi- 
nally to the Boston Evening Transcript, 
are here reprinted in response to many 
requests and to provide the writer 
with a record of an absorbing sum- 
mer. No one is more aware than he 
of their slightness from the point of 
view of the extraordinary. Yet, pos- 
sibly because they describe for the 
most part everyday and unspectacu- 
lar conditions, these notes may help 
American readers to comprehend the 
unity and to realize the heroic tem- 
per of two peoples, whose cause, al- 
though they have avoided its burden, 
is essentially their own. 

Robert Grant 

Boston, October 9, 1916 



THEIR SPIRIT 
I 

Having a son and grandchildren tem- 
porarily living in England, I did not 
need to seek a reason for leaving Amer- 
ica this summer. I was glad, however, 
of an excuse for getting as near as pos- 
sible to the most terrific thing that has 
ever happened, and had little patience 
with the well-intentioned murmurs of 
cautious souls who asked if I was not 
afraid of floating mines. In this day, 
when individual life seems to count for 
next to nothing with the rest of the 
world, the fear of being "a long time 
dead " continues to palsy unimagina- 
tive Americans. Yet one took barely 
[11 



THEIR SPIRIT 

a sporting chance in crossing the At- 
lantic this July. Although, as we en- 
tered the war zone, our good ship, the 
New Amsterdam, had her life rafts 
ready, her boats cleared for lowering, 
identifying flags fore and aft and elec- 
tric lettering on her sides, the charm 
of the radiant horizon and summer 
sea eclipsed all sense of peril during 
our approach to Falmouth. The pas- 
sengers — some Americans, a plenti- 
ful sprinkling of Dutch, a number of 
Canadians (chiefly wives going out 
to meet their husbands on leave from 
the front), several young women on 
their way to Red Cross Hospitals — 
must surely have lost no sleep on that 
last night. Among the few English- 
men on board was one of forty-two, 
just beyond the age-limit, who, hav- 
[2] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

ing spent over twenty years in Texas, 
was going out to enlist. 

Our passports had been searchingly 
scrutinized more than once on the pier 
at New York. The arrival of a file of 
soldiers as soon as we dropped anchor 
was our first intimation that we were 
in a country at war. The sheep, in the 
form of the passengers for Rotterdam, 
were separated from the goats and 
herded in the second-class quarters, 
while those expecting to land assem- 
bled at 8 A.M. in the saloon, at the 
door of which stood armed sentinels 
barring egress. If one left the room 
before examination it must be in the 
custody of a man in khaki, who never 
relaxed vigilance. 

As our names were called we ap- 
proached a table to run the gantlet 
[3] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

of a military officer and several lynx- 
eyed inspectors who inquired our rea- 
sons for visiting England and put 
other searching questions while study- 
ing our credentials. Behind them sat 
a burly looking woman in plain clothes 
whose function was to lead away and 
search any female passenger under sus- 
picion. 

Few had difficulty in justifying their 
desire to land. "You here again? 
You've lost five pounds in weight 
since six months ago," cried the lieu- 
tenant at the table, quick as a flash, 
by way of identification to a ship ac- 
quaintance of mine. Though every one 
in authority was perfectly civil, the 
process was necessarily slow. We did 
not leave the ship in the tender until 
after three o'clock and it was six be- 
Nl 



THEIR SPIRIT 

fore the train for London started. 
Falmouth itself looked at peace with 
all the world, and as we gazed out of 
the windows at the lovely landscape, 
glistening with the promise of a rich 
harvest, one would never have guessed 
the stupendous truth but for the omi- 
nous text in the railway carriage 
which meets the eye wherever one 
travels: 

WARNING: DEFENCE OF THE REALM 

Discussion in public of naval and mili- 
tary matters may convey information to 
the enemy. Be on your guard. 

As the twilight deepened the guard 
pulled down the shades of our com- 
partment with a resolute air. We did 
not reach Paddington until past mid- 
night, but before we could obtain 
[5] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

rooms in the adjacent hotel it was ob- 
ligatory to fill in the blanks thrust at 
us from the office with answers to ques- 
tions concerning our identity, and this 
is required of every one. 

Provided the traveller is careful to 
keep the curtains drawn while the 
lights are lit and to visit the nearest 
police station promptly after passing 
the night, there are no restrictions on 
coming or going in the zone of unforbid- 
den places — that is to say, virtually 
anywhere in England, except certain 
parts of the seacoast and the vicinity 
of camps or munition plants. An alien 
may even have access to these if 
vouched for and possessed of an iden- 
tity book, obtainable at the police 
station for a shilling, after setting forth 
his pedigree and producing two photo- 

[6] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

graphs. My wife and I each procured 
one from a very broad-shouldered and 
very civil police sergeant at Oxted, 
Surrey, ten minutes by train from 
the little town of Lingfield, where we 
made our headquarters. There is a 
munition plant at Oxted, and from 
our top windows we could readily see 
the searchlights probing the sky at 
night. We added another chalk-mark 
to the long tally of German falsehoods 
after reading in a despatch from Berlin 
published during our stay that Ox- 
ted had been raided by Zeppelins and 
the munition plant wrecked. Over 
the lovely English garden, where we 
sat or gathered roses during the late 
delightful weather of this August, 
aeroplanes on their way to or from 
France passed constantly with a res- 
[7] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

onant whirr audible at a great height, 
but never a Zeppelin showed itself, 
though we were hopefully on the 
watch for one. 

Living in the country at an easy dis- 
tance from London, we frequently 
went to town, though restrictions on 
the use of petrol — a limit of about 
eight gallons a month to the everyday 
consumer after August first — made 
us husband our resources and travel 
by train. There is a scarcity of noth- 
ing else in England — not even pet- 
rol, according to those who know, the 
ban regarding it being intended as a 
salutary check on week-end and joy- 
riding extravagance. Housekeeping 
bills have gone up about sixty per cent, 
and people are living simply; but at 
the hotels and restaurants there was 
[8] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

no change in the viands and not much 
in the prices over former years. The 
plutocratic American contingent had 
dwindled to a rump, to be sure, and 
quiet reigned at its favorite hostel- 
ries; but elsewhere there was a fair 
attendance of patrons, half of whom 
were men in khaki. London was lively 
on the surface, — especially since the 
good news from the Sonxtne, — despite 
those tragic lists in the morning news- 
papers. It seemed as though the deter- 
mination of an aroused England to 
win the war and thorough confidence 
in its ability to do so in the end were 
inspiring every one to cloak his or her 
individual grief. A friend told me of 
passing the week-end at a country house 
where every woman present had lost 
her only son; yet never a word was said. 
(9] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

Accustomed as' I had become dur- 
ing the last year to the formula, "Is 
n't France superb! But England has 
made a mess of things. Why does n't 
she wake up?" there was nothing but 
cheer in what was seen and : heard. I 
gleaned spiritual chastisement also, for 
my friends at home if not for myself, 
from the words of an intelligent Eng- 
lishwoman at luncheon: "You Amer- 
icans ought to have realized, when 
you threw up your hands and talked 
of Gallipoli and the rest, that we are 
just like yourselves — another democ- 
racy, only we happen to have a King 
instead of a President. Besides, we 
are much slower than you. But look 
at England now." 



II 

London is teemmg with soldiers. 
England also for the matter of that. 
We met them by the score wherever we 
journeyed — Rochester, Cirencester, 
Bath, or Liverpool. They skirted the 
roads in constant procession at week- 
ends, sometimes in little groups, each 
Tommy swinging briskly a short stick; 
sometimes with sweethearts or fami- 
lies, as we rode to Ashdown Forest for 
golf; and again, as I whirled toward 
Bramshot on a similar errand, I passed 
what seemed a mile of recruits in proc- 
ess of being disciplined for war in the 
great camp at Farnborough, tilting at 
dummies with the bayonet and being 
made familiar with trenches and wire 
[11 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

entanglement. They are in evidence 
everywhere, but in London one meets 
them at almost every step, vigorous, 
healthy-looking fellows for the most 
part, and invariably in the best of spir- 
its, be they veterans on leave from the 
front or convalescents from the hospi- 
tals in their blue or grey suits (which so 
many American women have made) 
and their red ties, or men from the vari- 
ous encampments waiting their turn to 
be sent to France. When I was here two 
years ago I thought that some of the 
troops looked undersized and puny; 
but of the thousands I ran across this 
summer in the streets, railway sta- 
tions, restaurants and Y.M.C.A. huts 
in London, I recall only one battalion 
that did not appear rugged. During 
the six weeks I was in England I saw 
[ 12] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

only one soldier who seemed under the 
influence of liquor. 

As for the Australians, they were 
a delight to the eye: tall, strapping, 
broad-shouldered chaps with ingenu- 
ous, good-natured faces. They come 
up to London on leave from Salis- 
bury Plain in large detachments and 
they happened to be swarming every- 
where, especially in the neighborhood 
of the Strand, on various days when 
I was in town. Some of them wear 
feathers at one side of their slouch 
hats, which provides a quasi-d'Ar- 
tagnan effect. When I inquired why 
they were thus adorned, of a wounded 
Australian just from Pozieres, thirty 
hours from the battle front to the 
hospital, he answered gayly, "For 
swank, I guess." But I believe they 
[13] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

are cavalrymen in embryo, who did 
not bring their horses with them. 
Later I crossed the Channel with an- 
other stalwart specimen of the same 
breed. We hobnobbed together in 
Havre during the hours of waiting and, 
in return perhaps for being helped over 
the rough places by my Stratford Atte 
Bowe French, he told me of his life in 
the trenches. "No matter how brave 
a man is, he is afraid at first. Who- 
ever says he was n't is a liar. Sleep? 
You don't in the beginning." He told 
me of how, walking with a friend, he 
had stepped aside for an instant and 
an exploding shell had obliterated his 
comrade so that literally there was no 
trace of him left. 

Every man in khaki carries his cre- 
dentials on his metal shoulder straps; 
[14] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

in the case of the Colonials, " Canada," 
"Australia," etc., in full; in that of 
the English, appropriate lettering to 
indicate their several regiments. An 
officer can be told at a glance by the 
strap which crosses from his shoulder 
to his belt without studying the stars 
or crown upon the cuff of his sleeve 
indicative of his rank. The flying corps 
men, whether officers or privates, are 
known at once by the Scotch caps 
of khaki worn on the side of the head. 
Every pilot is an officer, distinguish- 
able by the two spread wings embroid- 
ered on the breast of his uniform. 

A young American, to whom the 
Military Cross has been awarded for 
gallantry in fighting above the clouds, 
took me across England to one of the 
largest aerodromes, where I saw the 
[15] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

latest type of war machines being 
tested. While I stood in front of the 
lines of sheds on the wide plateau, a 
biplane straight from active service in 
France came circling down and de- 
scended at our feet. The huge dragon- 
fly, tarnished by smoke and grease but 
intact, had made the journey in two 
hours and a half. This latest type car- 
ries only a pilot; the observer is dis- 
pensed with. The gun is stationary, 
hugging the left side, a Vickars- 
Maxim with a magazine of two hun- 
dred and fifty charges, but so adapted 
that the propeller cannot be struck by 
the discharge. Aim is controlled by 
pointing the machine, not the gun. 
The bombs are carried underneath, 
detachable by a spring. The machines 
are not armored, but they will stand 

[ 16 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

some peppering. The most vulnerable 
part is the petrol tank just forward 
of where the pilot sits. The piercing of 
the wings is not a serious matter; but 
if the propeller be shattered, one 
might descend in safety, but would 
not be likely to escape. In warfare 
the aviator is sent up for an hour or 
two at a time. The fighting ordinarily 
takes place above the clouds, where 
there is no wind, and each opponent 
tries to pot or wing his adversary from 
above. 

The only external sign of war, be- 
sides the ubiquitous individual soldier, 
is the woman bus conductor with her 
sister who collects tickets and makes 
herself generally useful at the railway 
stations. As an Englishman ungrudg- 
[17] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

ingly put it, "England is being run by 
flappers — and run remarkably well." 
Certainly these fledglings, of whose 
steadiness tradition offered mournful 
prophecies, have turned the tables on 
the pessimists. Nor should their satis- 
faction in their new earning power, 
their rumored tendency to squander 
their revenues on wrist watches and 
other luxuries, nor indeed the problem 
as to what is to become of all the wo- 
men workers after the war, obscure 
the patriotic zeal that makes them 
faithful and efficient in the national 
emergency. To win one's spurs on the 
jolting platform of a bus with con- 
stant trips to the roof for fares, re- 
quires coolness, agility, and pleasant 
manners, all of which were displayed 
by these girl conductors attired not 
[ 18] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

unbecomingly in dark blue costumes 
(often brown Holland in summer) and 
long leggings. Tlie female railway 
officials, in their close-fitting short uni- 
form and visored caps, under which 
their back hair is neatly rolled up, 
have a piquant military air. 

I mention these because they are 
always in evidence. They are but 
symbols, however, of the tremendous 
activity below the surface which es- 
capes the casual eye and must be 
seen in order to be realized — privates 
in the great army of womankind which 
has thrown itself into the service of 
the country to fill the countless gaps 
occasioned by the withdrawal of 
3,000,000 men from bread -winning 
and to "man" the innumerable new 
industries whereby the citizen army 
[19 1 



THEIR SPIRIT 

is supplied with ordnance, fed, suc- 
cored, snatched from the jaws of death 
and rehabiHtated by ministrations — 
voluntary whenever the individual 
can afford it and constantly when 
he or she cannot — throughout the 
United Kingdom. 

Some one said publicly while I 
was in England that this is a young 
man's war. That is true if we reckon 
simply those engaged in killing. But 
the fighters at home, whose labors 
are essential to success, include not 
merely young women, but the mid- 
dle-aged of both sexes and scores 
of superannuated men who devote 
long hours to this or that requisite 
need in the scheme of almost uni- 
versal service. My wife and I visited 
numerous shops and rooms where this 
[20] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

voluntary work was being carried on 
and found all animated with the same 
energetic, steadfast, and indefatigable 
spirit. We saw elderly men painstak- 
ingly absorbed in the nice work of con- 
structing artificial legs and crutches, 
while in the adjoining room a group of 
women were making splints, and so 
deftly that it was inspiring to watch 
them. "I was a wood -carver before 
the war," one of them said, "and all 
of us in this room were artists of one 
sort or another who wanted to help." 
And so it goes. 

Speaking of legs, I am reminded 
that on the way back from France 
three weeks later, I struck up an 
acquaintance with an English oJQScer 
who pointed downwards and said, 
"That's an American leg and it's a 
[21] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

wonder — much better than the Eng- 
lish, which is too heavy. The other 
day I played three sets of tennis on it 
and it worked beautifully." He was a 
fine-looking fellow and attached, since 
his infirmity, or rather in spite of it, 
to the General Headquarters Staff in 
France. He lost his real leg in the 
early days of the war when, as he said, 
there were no trenches and simply a 
little earth was scooped up as a barrier. 
My wife, who is interested in col- 
lecting funds for artificial limbs, re- 
quested me to make inquiries concern- 
ing them in France, and I did so. 
There seems no question that the 
American leg is far superior to any, 
and there are at present three Ameri- 
can makers of legs and arms in Paris. 
I learned from an official at the Ameri- 
[ 22 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

can Clearing House who lias this char- 
ity at heart that the French Govern- 
ment provides the mutilated with 
either a stump or a very heavy leg cost- 
ing two hundred francs (forty dollars) ; 
but only with the appliances, no 
money. The American articulated leg 
costs fully one hundred dollars, and 
the best arms are proportionately ex- 
pensive — the admirable Carnes arm 
costing about two hundred dollars. 
The moral deduced by my informant 
from this was that, for the ordinary 
mechanic and farmer, a stump is prac- 
tically as serviceable as the articulated 
leg for the reason that his earnings 
would not suffice to keep it in repair; 
but to the man of superior employ- 
ment a good articulated leg is indis- 
pensable. The demand for limbs — 
[23] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

for arms even more than for legs — 
far exceeds the supply. The policy 
pursued by those managing this splen- 
did charity has been to ask a partial 
payment from the recipients — a hun- 
dred francs, say, from each individual 
— and I was told that in every in- 
stance but one the sufferer had been 
eager to contribute. 

While making these inquiries I was 
taken to the Ecole Rachel just outside 
the gates of Paris, one of the shops of 
the Association Nationale des Mutiles 
de la Guerre, where some sixty men 
were being taught self-supporting 
trades best adapted to their individual 
injiu'ies, — learning to be mechanics, 
shoemakers, jewellers, designers, and 
the like. It was a very pathetic and 
interesting sight. The greater number 
[ 24 1 



THEIR SPIRIT 

lacked either a leg or an arm. One 
man, who was at work on some cast- 
ings, the adjustment of which required 
precision, had lost most of one side. 
Another minus his left leg and his 
left forearm was draughting from 
mechanical designs. He said he was 
a farmer with a taste for invention 
and tinkering and that he was try- 
ing to inform himself in order to be 
able to manage somehow later. He 
was so cheerful and optimistic that 
his confidence was contagious, though 
the fellow Bostonian, who was my 
companion, and I had tears in our 
eyes; but our guide carefully took 
down his name with the evident inten- 
tion of keeping him in mind. 



Ill 

It was of England, however, that I 
was writing. I have digressed to Paris 
only for a moment, as I shall take you 
across the Channel later. But what- 
ever is true of the determination and 
the ardor of the workers in either coun- 
try is equally true of the other. I hap- 
pened to be in England when the war 
broke out and I remember saying in 
those early weeks that England was 
in a death- grapple with Germany for 
the economic supremacy of the world 
and seemed to have no conception of 
it. Such were the surface indications. 
Yet after all is said and her later mud- 
dling is admitted, it is patent now that 
from the very first there was a group of 
[ 26 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

noiseless men behind the scenes who 
realized the magnitude of the effort 
necessary, who took the bit of tireless 
endeavor between their teeth and who 
hold it still. How otherwise are we 
to account for her condition to-day? 
England is wide-awake and on the 
full tide of her efficiency. Referring 
to this an English friend, not prone to 
overpraise, remarked to me, with feel- 
ing, that after the war some one ought 
to receive high honors for the effective- 
ness of the transportation system. It 
is certainly a marvellous one that has 
been able to carry to France, without 
interruptions or the loss, so far as we 
know, of a single life, such a continu- 
ous stream of troops, munitions, and 
supplies. Writing in the *' Petit Jour- 
nal" of August 4, the second anniver- 
[27] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

sary of England's entrance into the 
war, M. Piehon truly if magnanimous- 
ly declared: "Let no Frenchman de- 
ceive himself on this matter. Events 
have proved that if the struggle had 
been localized between France and 
Russia on the one hand and Germany 
and her allies on the other, a German 
victory would have been the conse- 
quence. It is useless to cherish phan- 
tasms. The facts are there. Without 
Great Britain our ports were practi- 
cally at the mercy of the enemy, and 
our oversea communications practi- 
cally cut off." 

Too many details spoil the perspec- 
tive of an impressionist picture, but a 
few are essential for reality. One of 
the touching sights in England — the 
[28] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

straws which reveal the wealth of feel- 
ing beneath a brave surface — is the 
roll of honor in every railway station 
and in the porch of every church, a list 
of the employees or parishioners at the 
front, often with the names of those 
never to return starred with a little flag. 
I saw this again in the hotels of Paris. 
I recall a Sunday vespers service in 
the old parish church with the beau- 
tiful tower and flying buttresses at 
ancient and Roman Cirencester (which 
some pronounce Ciceter). All pres- 
ent were women and elderly men; 
and as I listened to the intercessory 
prayers tenderly intoned by the rector, 
I could not but feel that the solemn 
pauses throbbed with the universal 
heartache of England, masking even 
in God's presence as fortitude. 
[ 29 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

Next day we were in Bath, where 
the kind acquaintance — an alderman 
of that city — who swept us in his auto- 
mobile from one historic landmark and 
one superb view to another, was no 
less eager to introduce us to the hospi- 
tals and all that pertained to the war 
than to the Pump Rooms with their 
ever thermal springs, the Assembly 
Rooms dear to the readers of Jane Aus- 
ten, and the Royal Crescent, the scene 
of Mr. Winkle's discomfiture. There 
are hospitals everywhere in England; 
and nothing is more noticeable than 
the number of temporary structures all 
over the land, with some building origi- 
nally used for another purpose as a 
starting-point, beyond which extend 
at various angles row after row of long 
huts, resembling barracks, where the 
[30] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

wounded are cared for — neat, light, 
and airy, for the most part, with a 
single row of beds along each side. 

We visited various hospitals. The 
one we saw at Bath was substantially 
like those in London or its neighbor- 
hood. One met always the same cheer- 
fulness among the patients, the same 
unselfish devotion on the part of the 
attendants. Among the few gladdening 
sights in this panorama of determina- 
tion is the passage of the huge auto- 
mobiles bearing loads of convalescents 
on sanctioned joy rides, in their blue 
blouses and red ties, with radiant faces 
rivalling boys let loose from school. An 
acquaintance, eager to play the lady 
bountiful, told me she asked a wounded 
soldier to choose what he would have 
and his first and only choice was a 
[31] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

mouthpiece of the jew's-harp variety 
which she finally obtained in Paris, for 
there were none left in London. In the 
very grateful letter which she received 
in acknowledgment, he laid stress on 
the pleasure which his gift had given 
to every one in the ward. Such are the 
simple tastes of Tommy Atkins in the 
midst of proffered luxury. 

An incident vouched for at a London 
luncheon table illustrates his readiness 
and his sanity. During the height of 
the recruiting campaign a Salvation 
Army preacher, envious perhaps of the 
emphasis laid on the glories of trench 
warfare, endeavored to electrify the 
crowd by the apostrophe, *' Khaki, 
khaki, khaki — I see nothing else 
wherever I turn. But let me remind 
you, my friends, that I belong to a 
[32] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

greater army than any of which you 
can boast — the army of Heaven." As 
he paused to let his words possess his 
audience he was met by the retort, 
"Is that so, man? Then you're a h — 1 
of a long way from your barracks!" 

We did not leave Bath without stop- 
ping at the Canadian Discharge Hos- 
pital at Prior Park, which commands 
an exquisite view from its proud height, 
once the seat of famous hospitality, 
and later a Roman Catholic institu- 
tion, but now the haven to which all 
invalided Canadian soldiers must come 
in order to receive discharge papers 
and be sent home with fixed pensions. 
Certainly they have won for them- 
selves the distinction of bravest of the 
brave, if one is to discriminate in this 
[33] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

carnival of human courage and im- 
passioned loyalty. Several times this 
summer have I heard it asked — and 
sometimes by Americans a little quer- 
ulously — "How do you account for 
the devotion of the Dominions to the 
Mother Country?" It has been one 
of the most inspiring features of this 
war of surprises and may well be spirit- 
ually disconcerting, not merely to the 
Germans, but to those whose motto 
is "safety first." Nor is it less to the 
credit of these fearless legions from 
overseas that their ardor sprang from 
the perception that the Colonies would 
be nothing but dismembered limbs 
were England vanquished. 

A few days later we were at Roches- 
ter, where in Egyptian darkness — for 
not a ray escaped from any window in 
[34 1 



THEIR SPIRIT 

that town or from adjacent Chatham 
— we watched, on the terrace under 
the shadow of the Cathedral, a dozen 
searchhghts probe the sky Hke huge 
luminous pencils, divergent, concen- 
trating, crossing and recrossing, while 
our hostess, an American before her 
marriage, told us the story, typical of 
every town in England, of how a neigh- 
borhood utterly unprepared for war 
had been welded into a body of tireless, 
enthusiastic workers whose only im- 
pulse was service to the nation. Next 
morning under her guidance we made 
a circuit of Chatham, the objective of 
more than one Zeppelin raid, saw again 
large bodies of recruits being made fit 
for war, the extensive naval buildings 
where are housed no less than thirteen 
thousand British sailors, and passed 
[35] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

huge lorries of the Army Service Corps 
transporting suppHes for the troops. 

Returning to London, we availed 
ourselves of an invitation to inspect 
the "London Rest and Refreshment 
Huts " maintained by the Y.M.C.A., 
one of the most admirable and benefi- 
cent forms of war relief. "Under the 
Sign of the Red Triangle a Warm Wel- 
come awaits All Men in H.M. Uni- 
form" — so he who runs may read, 
and this means a bed and breakfast, 
dinner, tea or supper at reasonable 
rates at any of the huts, most of which 
are in the vicinity of one of the big 
railway stations and all of which are 
open day and night. Their mission is 
to provide better accommodations and 
food than could be obtained elsewhere 
[36] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

at the same price and consequent pro- 
tection from evil company. Self-re- 
spect is catered to by a charge for 
everything except a "wash and brush 
up "and cloak-room facilities; a shilling 
and sixpence for a room and breakfast. 
So popular are these resorts that al- 
though the first was not opened until 
July, 1915, there are to-day fourteen 
in active operation in London fre- 
quented weekly by some seven thou- 
sand Tommies. There is also a hut for 
oflScers close to Victoria Station. Be- 
ginning with the Shakespeare Hut, a 
sunny, inviting place just opened, we 
visited a number in succession, in- 
cluding that at Waterloo, which might 
be termed the storm centre of patron- 
age. Although midnight is the hour 
when the spectacle is most dramatic, 
[37] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

here already at a little after noon the 
hut was thronged with soldiers chat- 
ting, smoking, writing letters, reading 
magazines, or drowsing, according to 
their humor. We saw the cubicles, 
never more than two in a room, the 
busy kitchen and the neat tables, with 
lady volunteers as maids and wait- 
resses, attired in red as a foil to the 
few paid attendants who are required 
for certain kinds of work and to insure 
good cooking and regularity. 



IV 

How long will the war last and wliat 
do they think of us over there? No one 
in a position to know expects the end 
for at least another year and the at- 
titude of the man in the street regard- 
ing the terms of peace is well expressed 
by this extract from a leading news- 
paper which was printed shortly be- 
fore I left England: — 

The really important point is that the 
Cabinet should know that the people of 
this country are determined to carry on 
the war until the military power of Ger- 
many is utterly crushed, and that they 
are equally determined to insist upon 
conditions of peace which will prevent 
the rehabilitation of that power within 
any brief period. 

[39] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

As to what they think of us in 
England, the answer is simple: They 
scarcely think of us at all. Only a very 
few items of American news find their 
way into the daily press. At the time 
when the black list, the fate of Sir 
Roger Casement, and British interfer- 
ence with the mails were agitating our 
public, neither the "Times," "Post," 
nor "Telegraph," nor any of the eve- 
ning dailies gave more than a scant par- 
agraph or so to our opinions. Oftener 
they printed nothing. There had been 
so much backing and filling on the part 
of our Government that what America 
thought had ceased to interest them, 
it having been set down for certain 
long ago that we had no intention of 
taking a definite stand on the moral 
issues at stake. I do not think that 
[40] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

either England or France expected or 
desired us to enter the war, but what 
they did hope for, after the situation 
became plain, was an official expression 
of moral sympathy. Had the United 
States uttered this, she would have put 
the civilization of the Old World under 
everlasting obligations. Her failure to 
do so has ranked us, in the estimation 
of Europe, with " that caitiff choir of 
angels who have not rebellious been 
nor faithful were to God, but were for 
self," of whom the poet writes: — 

The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair; 
Nor them the nethermore abyss receives. 
For glory none the damned would have from 
them. 

The French feel very grateful for 
our generous gifts of money, munifi- 
cent in individual cases, yet, when 
[41 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

measured by our population, far from 
overpowering; profoundly grateful also 
to our noble-hearted youths who have 
lost or risked their lives in the 
trenches, ambulance corps, or in the 
air in order to repel the German hor- 
ror, and to the spirited group of Ameri- 
cans in Paris who have labored un- 
stintingly during two years to relieve 
human suffering. In both countries 
one encounters disappointment rather 
than enmity. Thoughtful people real- 
ize the dilemma we were in and make 
allowances for us. Nevertheless the 
attitude of our rank and file in this 
crisis, of whose sentiments our Presi- 
dent is believed to be the mouthpiece, 
has given fresh life to the old Euro- 
pean suspicion that the United States 
loves high-sounding phrases, but will 
[ 42] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

side-step at a pinch, and has caused 
both the English and the French to 
feel that by failing to rise above the 
height of the dollar mark and its own 
immediate safety, the foremost expo- 
nent of aspiring democracy has missed 
the grandest opportunity to protest 
against wrong ever offered to a nation. 



V 

Before one can go to France it is 
necessary to have one's passport in- 
dorsed by the American consul-general 
and then vise by the French consul- 
general, whose offices are in spacious 
but now semi-commercial Bedford 
Square. One must have a fairly good 
reason for crossing the Channel or per- 
mission is not granted. As I am a 
member of the Boston Committee of 
the American Hostels for Refugees 
and Children of Flanders and was 
armed with a telegram from Paris, I 
had no difficulty in satisfying the au- 
thorities. After I had waited half an 
hour in the antechamber, one of a 
crowd of other aliens, mostly French 
[ 44 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

(the English apply next door), includ- 
ing many women, my number was 
called, and I passed upstairs by a rear 
staircase to run the gantlet of several 
officials seated at little tables, to whom 
I handed photographs and answered a 
few searching questions. Permission 
to go is limited to three consecutive 
days. It would be necessary — so 
everybody is informed — to leave 
England on one of them or passage 
would be refused. 

This was Friday; I was planning to 
start on Sunday. "Vu au Consulat 
General de France," etc., having been 
stamped on my passport, I took my 
departure from Bedford Square only 
to turn up there (with the bad half- 
crown that was given me in change) on 
the following Monday and ask for an 
[45] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

extension which wa^ politely granted, 
together with a good coin. I had gone 
early with my hand-bags on Sunday 
night to Waterloo Station, which was 
packed with soldiers and their families 
exchanging week-end farewells. I had 
my ticket, but when I reached the 
platform progress was barred by the 
announcement that the boat train for 
Southampton, scheduled for 10.30, 
would not start that night and that 
the passengers of the night before 
were on their way back. When I asked 
the reason, the official answered omi- 
nously, " Something in the Channel." 
Travel had been resumed when I 
reappeared at Waterloo on Tuesday, 
and on the way up to Paris I learned 
that two submarines, which were 
promptly netted, had been the cause 
[46] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

of my delay. The only route now open 
for travellers is from Southampton 
to Havre, a six-hour journey on the 
water. The train reaches Southamp- 
ton shortly after midnight, and the 
steamer does not start until about five 
o'clock. I had been advised by a 
friend to ride in one of the rear railway 
carriages in order, on arrival, to be 
exactly opposite the entrance to the 
room where the passports would be 
examined. Consequently I was in the 
front line of the three hundred passen- 
gers seated in rows on benches or 
standing in the rear. A rigid examina- 
tion of passports followed. We pro- 
ceeded slowly in single file from in- 
spector to inspector, past soldier after 
soldier. It was one o'clock before the 
pink ticket, which permitted me to 
[47 J 



THEIR SPIRIT 

collect my bags and go on board, was 
handed me and I had claimed my 
cabin. How long it was before the end 
of the file was reached I do not know, 
for after a brief survey of the shrouded 
harbor from the deck I went to bed 
and was asleep some time before the 
Hantonia started. 

When I awoke it was still dark. 
Peering through the porthole I made 
out that it was a clear, moonlit night, 
and I could discern, but not very dis- 
tinctly, the outlines of one or two ves- 
sels. When morning came — a lovely 
morning with a summer sea — nothing 
was visible until we sighted the French 
coast. The Hantonia is a sturdy craft 
with two funnels. Her heavy deck 
seats are also intended for life rafts and 
in the cabins there was an abundance 
[48] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

of life belts, but I doubt if any one put 
them on. My fellow passengers — 
among them a number of English 
officers and hospital nurses — were 
evidently not a nervous lot. Our ap- 
proach to Havre was between two 
strings of mines converging to a nar- 
row passage at the harbor's mouth and 
indicated by huge buoys resembling 
corks. Two large steamships crowded 
with English troops were just ahead 
of us. A French patrol boat with guns 
and torpedo tubes dashed out as we 
passed in — the only warship that we 
saw on the passage. On our starboard 
bow were the protruding masts and 
funnels of two sunken vessels, but 
whether they ran ashore or were the 
victims of mines or submarines was 
not disclosed to me. We reached the 
[ 49 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

jetty about noon, and before separat- 
ing — the train for Paris did not leave 
until five o'clock — stood in line again 
and exhibited our passports, this time 
to French oflScials, three of them in 
turn. 

Havre viewed casually showed few 
outward signs of war. In the streets 
I met soldiers here and there, both 
French in their sky-blue uniforms, 
and English, but they were not numer- 
ous. Tortoni's, where I lunched, was 
well patronized. On the tram which 
bore me to the railway station a very 
voluble and very good-natured woman 
conductor of large physique ruled her 
compatriots with a rod of iron. As we 
sped toward Paris the abundant crops 
were being gathered by men long past 
their prime, or occasionally by women. 
[50] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

Rouen was still a thing of beauty as 
we crossed the Seine, and the dinner 
served to us on the train in time of 
war was better than that of the aver- 
age American dining-car in these pip- 
ing days of neutrality. And so without 
misadventure or friction we reached 
Paris in the early evening. 



VI 

" Taisez-vous! Mefiez-vous! Les 
oreilles ennemies vous ecoutent," the 
sign whicli confronts one in railway 
trains and other public places in 
France, has a tenser and more dra- 
matic sound than the equivalent Eng- 
lish warning. My first duty, after pass- 
ing the night in Paris, was to report 
to the Commissaire de Police nearest 
my hotel, who provided me with a 
stamped paper emblazoned with my 
photograph, which set forth that I 
was authorized to continue my resi- 
dence in Paris for the time being. 

There were fewer surface indica- 
tions of war than in London. There 
were not nearly so many soldiers in 

[52] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

the streets. The cafes on the fashion- 
able boulevards seemed to have their 
usual complement of guests, despite 
the absence of Americans. There was 
no scarcity of taxicabs, driven by men. 
The hotels in the Place Vendome and 
the shops along the Rue de la Paix and 
in the Place de I'Opera were open. 
When I looked in at the Cafe des Am- 
bassadeurs at half-past seven there 
was scarcely anybody dining, but by 
half-past eight every table was oc- 
cupied. 

Paris in August is not apt to be 
lively; it was not lively then, but the 
atmosphere was brisk rather than sad. 
Confidence was in the air, — the corner 
had been turned and Roumania was 
said to be coming in, — with the result 
that the prevalent note was almost 
[ 53 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

cheerful, notwithstanding the univer- 
sal grief. To the visitor Paris seemed 
normal for midsummer if one did not 
probe too deep. The theatres, such as 
they were, were thinly attend ed. There 
was no heart for even the semblance 
of gaiety, and the only fashion were 
the long mourning veils; yet one real- 
ized that Paris at last felt sure of 
winning. 

The streets at night were dark, but 
not so completely so as in London, 
where one had to grope one's way at 
times. Dark as it was in Paris, there 
was enough light afforded here and 
there by small and shaded street 
lamps to enable the taxis to whirl by 
furiously. I was assured that business 
was much better than a year ago. Ask- 
ing as to the men waiters at the res- 
[54 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

taurants, I was told that many were 
Spaniards. When I ventured to say to 
a quiet Frenchman, "How superb 
France has been!" he answered sadly, 
"Yes, but at what a cost." Beneath 
the brave surface there is no lack of 
appreciation of the appalling sacrifice. 
France is heart-broken, but it sees the 
beginning of the end, and this has 
brought fresh zest in living. At the 
Madeleine, into which I stepped twice 
at the noon hour, a few women were 
kneeling before the shrine of the Virgin 
and there were votive flowers for the 
dead on the altar, but the soul of 
France seemed to be on the battle- 
fields and in the hospitals and work- 
shops rather than in the churches. 

On the day after my arrival I was 

[55] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

called by telephone from the Bureau 
de la Presse attached to the Ministere 
des Affaires Etrangeres (Foreign Of- 
fice) and told that I was to be allowed 
to go to the front. I owed this favor to 
my friend, Mrs. Edith Wharton, the 
distinguished novelist, who has made 
France her debtor by her beneficent 
charities, the American Hostels for 
Refugees and Children of Flanders, and 
who spoke to the authorities as soon 
as she heard that I was coming. I was 
asked to call at 3 Rue Frangois Premier 
for further instructions. I did so that 
afternoon, and there learned from the 
courteous officials who received me 
that the journey was fixed for four 
days later and that the party would 
include two or three American war 
correspondents and a well-known 
[56 J 



THEIR SPIRIT 

French man of letters. Our probable 
destination would be the first-line 
trenches beyond Rheims — not a very 
active front at the moment, but the 
more accessible on that account. I was 
provided with a little cardboard iden- 
tity book containing my photograph, 
wherein I was described as a "Roman- 
cier Americain," and my movements 
in the war zone were limited to a par- 
ticular date and locality. There was 
space reserved in the book for other ex- 
peditions, and it seems that the Gov- 
ernment is not averse to giving a small 
number of properly accredited for- 
eigners chances at intervals to observe 
what is interesting. 

I presented myself on the following 
Tuesday morning at the Gare de TEst 
to take the train for Epernay that left 
[57] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

at 8 A.M. Except for my "Permis de 
Correspondent de la Presse aux Ar- 
mees" I should not have been per- 
mitted to buy a ticket for any spot in 
the war zone. After this was shown to 
the gendarme guarding the approach 
to the ticket office there was no diffi- 
culty. The long express train, the car- 
riages of which were labelled "Nancy," 
etc., contained chiefly army officers 
or persons whose employment was 
near the front. Our route was through 
the watershed of the Marne. As I 
viewed the smiling and, as it appeared 
from the windows, unmarred and fer- 
tile landscape, a succession of lovely 
valleys and commanding heights, it 
was difficult to credit that this para- 
dise was the scene of the stupendous 
and ever memorable battle. As we 
[58] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

crossed the river at a certain point the 
two experienced American correspond- 
ents, who shared the compartment 
with me and who had recently visited 
the district as far as Meaux and Ourcq 
and Etravigny, where they saw the 
rows on rows of crosses, white for the 
French and black for the German, 
identified for my benefit this and that 
landmark. 



VII 

We reached Epernay about ten, where 
we were greeted by the French offi- 
cer who had been detailed to meet 

us, Lieutenant C D , whose 

left hand was in a splint from a wound 
received at Verdun in the early days 
of the war. Its nerves were dead, 
but so deft as well as debonair was he 
that one scarcely realized it. Our as- 
sembled party had increased to nine in 
all, including one lady, who had been 
allowed to come because she had trav- 
elled much in little-explored portions 
of the globe. There were four army 
automobiles, sky-blue like the French 
uniforms and helmets, waiting for us, 
three of them limousines and one open. 
[60] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

Presumably because I had brought 
a fairly heavy coat with me, I was 
invited by the lieutenant to occupy 
the open car with him and the lady, 
and soon we were speeding in the 
direction of Rheims through a lovely 
rolling country where the crops were 
being gathered, which revealed no 
traces of war. 

Our first pause was on rising ground 
where we dismounted to obtain a dis- 
tant view of Rheims Cathedral, which 
from this point looked intact, and our 
first glimpse of the German trenches, 
which, from ten miles away, appeared 
glistening white threads upon the hill- 
side. We gathered round our guide, 
who, map in hand, pointed out where 
we were and where he proposed to take 
us. One ran a little risk, he said smil- 
[61] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

ingly, but the Germans rarely fired 
before five o'clock. 

On we went, and presently were 
speeding over a long road screened 
partly by cloth, partly by bushes, 
in order to conceal the passers, and 
manifestly the main approach for 
troops and munitions. In the occa- 
sional villages we came to, we saw 
women and old men sitting in front of 
their doors, and were told that most 
of the inhabitants were fixtures. The 
first objects that arrested the eye as 
we entered Rheims were a couple of 
women crossing the street. People con- 
tinue to live there placidly, notwith- 
standing the Germans often fire on the 
town. "Whenever we do anything 
they don't like," said our lieutenant, 
"they bang away at the Cathedral." 
[62] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

My first impression as I stepped 
from the car and gazed up at the Cath- 
edral was that it is less badly damaged 
than I feared. It still stands, and so 
substantially that for an instant I was 
deceived. The next moment I realized 
that I was looking at the lacerated, 
riddled, calcined remnant of what 
had once been a thing of supreme 
beauty. In one sense the edifice is all 
there, in another there is nothing left. 
Pierre Loti's simile fits the case — "It 
gives the impression of a huge mummy, 
still upright and majestic, but which 
a breath would reduce to ashes." It is 
a wonder that the Germans did not 
complete their handiwork. They cer- 
tainly did their best, for the interven- 
ing shops and houses in the line of fire 
are completely gutted, literally torn 
[63] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

to pieces, while certain parts of the 
town are uninjured. We rode by them 
later and bought photographs at a 
little shop which somehow had es- 
caped the general destruction. 

The shell fire which wrought the 
damage fell obliquely. That is, it 
must have come across the side of the 
Cathedral on my right hand as I faced 
the fagade, so that the gorgeous front 
was not directly exposed; but the ex- 
ploding missiles crashed into the Place 
du Parvis and ricochetted. There is 
a gaping hole, wide as a large man's 
shoulders, in the roof of the side in 
question and many of the carvings 
have been lopped off. The statues on 
the famous front are sadly mutilated, 
but it was not easy to estimate the 
exact damage for the reason that they 
[ 64 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

are now protected and propped up by 
sandbags. 

The exterior of the adjacent Hotel 
Lion d'Or looks as if it had been 
used as a shooting gallery, so disfig- 
ured is it with shot holes. Within 
the Cathedral the havoc wrought by 
fire exceeds that from the bombard- 
ment. Nearly all the priceless glass in 
the church is gone. Only one half of 
the celebrated rose -window remains. 
The pavement is shattered here and 
there and strewn with glass and debris. 
Pigeons roost in the capitals of the 
columns and their feathers are every- 
where. Certain portions of the struc- 
ture, both inside and without, have 
escaped injury, but as a whole it is ter- 
ribly disfigured and defiled. Whether 
it can be adequately restored after the 
[65 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

war is over and the sense of outrage 
less acute remains to be seen. 

After an hour or so in Rheims we set 
out for the trenches; in two auto- 
mobiles instead of four in order to 
diminish the number of objects on the 
road, lest the Germans, who are con- 
stantly on the watch for munition 
wagons, open fire. .The Cathedral is 
a mile and a quarter from the front; 
the inner and outer French lines had 
already been pointed out to us on the 
map and we were now on the way to 
the outer trenches, of which there were 
three rows, the nearest eighteen hun- 
dred and the farthest three hundred to 
five hundred yards from the Ger- 
mans. The complexion of the land- 
scape, which on the way up from 
[66] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

Epernay was so smiling, had changed. 
It looked worn and desolate. Not a 
soul was in sight except ourselves so 
far as the eye could reach. In the dis- 
mal fields as we flew past we caught 
sight of wire entanglement and the 
tops of trenches. Now and again a 
solitary gun boomed from the rear, 
two or three miles away. Presumably 
they were shooting over our heads, 
but at that time we saw nothing and 
no response came from the Germans. 
By the way, I heard in Paris that ever 
since the exchange of notes between 
Washington and Berlin, the French 
call the shells that don't explode 
"Yankees." 

We alighted behind a rough ram- 
part of earth and chalk stone, beyond 
which was the entrance to the trench 
[67] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

line, or "boyau" as it is called, and 
after a few words between our lieuten- 
ant and the officer in charge we were 
admitted. Perhaps a dozen soldiers 
were visible at this point. As we 
passed on we kept meeting them dur- 
ing the two hours we were there, in 
little groups, not many at a time, or 
emerging from the dugouts. I under- 
stood that it was the French custom to 
keep only a small force in the outer 
trenches, on the theory that an attack 
is ordinarily preceded by a bombard- 
ment and that because of close tele- 
phonic communication with the rear 
there would be ample time to bring up 
troops in case of an attempt to "rush" 
the position. The trenches were very 
devious, purposely so in order to be- 
wilder the enemy who should enter 

[68] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

them. All those we saw were cut 
through the solid chalk rock and had a 
hard bottom with a narrow rut at the 
edge to carry the moisture. Their level 
was slightly above our heads and their 
sides toward the top were gay with 
poppies and wild flowers, the growth 
of which in such grim surroundings is 
encouraged in order that the trenches 
may be less obvious to the German 
aeroplanes, or "avions" as the French 
call them. 

The force we saw was a detachment 
of the 288th regiment and the major in 
command courteously gave us every 
facility for realizing what life at the 
front was like, short of inducing the 
Germans to open fire. As we pro- 
ceeded windingly from one trench to 
another we were permitted to take a 
[69] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

view, not more than one or two of us 
at a time, of the German Hne, which 
even from the nearest point — three 
hundred yards — resembled a series of 
irregular white chalk marks. At certain 
places there was a narrow platform 
where one could stand without expos- 
ing more than the head or neck. Those 
who had us in charge must have con- 
sidered the risk to be slight, for they 
did not hesitate to show themselves. 
Once, when we were nearest to the 
German line and several of us, myself 
included, were peering over the top 
of a trench, partly sheltered by one 
of the rough ramparts or observation 
posts which we came to here and there, 
crack went a mitrailleuse. The prompt- 
ness with which we ducked simul- 
taneously made us all burst out laugh- 
[70] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

ing, and the next instant we realized 
that the gun had been discharged a 
little farther on in our boyau for the 
edification of the rest of the party. 

Noticing, in the hands of a private, a 
gun with a curious attachment at the 
end a little like a telescope, I asked 
what it was for. An officer told the 
soldier to fire. This he did at once and 
we saw distinctly a black object, about 
the size of a golf ball, describe an arc 
with the velocity of a well-hit mid- 
iron shot, then fall apparently in or on 
the German trench. Up rose a black 
cloud of smoke and dirt with whatever 
else happened to be where it struck. 
This was a bomb, of course, and the 
weapon was said to be a new contriv- 
ance. 

Presently an officer led the way into 
[ 71 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

a subterranean chamber, a steep de- 
scent at first by a narrow and dark 
passage. After reaching the level we 
gropingly ascended toward an aper- 
ture, large enough for a man's body, 
through which our guide set the exam- 
ple of crawling on his stomach. Several 
of us followed him and found ourselves 
on the ground outside the trenches, 
in No Man's Land, so-called. In 
front of us from one angle was a 
hundred yards of wire entanglement, 
beyond which we could not see while 
recumbent, but from another the 
German trenches were in plain sight at 
short range; yet nothing stirred in 
them. The chamber from which we 
issued was an outpost for machine-gun 
fire, known as "un abri caverne 
avance." One of the party who re- 
[72] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

mained in the trench said it seemed 
surprising that the Germans did not 
spy us; but our guide's lack of concern 
made us take for granted that they 
would not fire if they did, and we re- 
mained lying or sitting on the dried 
grass for several minutes. 

Later we were informed that some 
guns would be fired from the rear for 
our benefit, and having been con- 
ducted to another subterranean cham- 
ber, were told to watch through the 
aperture. At intervals during the day 
perhaps twenty random shots had 
been fired, all of them, to judge by the 
sound, of the same calibre as the "soi- 
xante-quinze," the boom of which we 
now heard. The location of the gun 
was presumably a mile or two awayc 
Gazing fixedly at the German line four 
[73] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

hundred yards in front of us, I saw the 
shell break in the trench, as it seemed, 
and a mass black as a thunder-cloud 
leap into the air. Boom went a second 
cannon, but this time I failed to see the 
shell explode. It was now my turn to 
retire, and two more shots were fired 
for the other half of our party. To 
have big guns discharged to order 
"while you wait" gave me slightly the 
sense of being "personally conducted," 
and I had to assure myself that I was 
a guest of the French War Office and 
not a Cook's tourist. Yet there was 
grim reality staring us in the face from 
less than five hundred yards away, 
and simply because of an idiosyncrasy 
— the habit of not firing until after 
five o'clock, — ignoring our presence. 
Of course we visited the dugouts and 
[ 74] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

saw the quarters of both the officers 
and the poilus, dark and cramped at 
best in order to be reasonably safe. 
It is a wonder that all look so cheerful 
and in such good physical trim. The 
soldiers smiled at us a little wonder- 
ingly; the word had been passed that 
we were American visitors. As I 
rounded a turn, the dim underground 
passage widened into a sort of cave 
where two men were lounging on their 
bunks, which were one above the 
other, while close by a third was 
seated at a table before a number of 
telegraph wires. Life under such con- 
ditions, even to save one's skin, must 
be contracted and gloomy, but I did 
not behold during the visit any face 
which suggested despondency or lack 
of vigor. The soldiers that we met 
[75 1 



THEIR SPIRIT 

were a well-seasoned and resolute lot. 
While retracing our steps we came 
upon two of them carrying a huge 
steaming can of soup for their com- 
rades in the forward trench. Before we 
left we were shown the kitchen and 
the Red Cross shelter, where the 
wounded were cared for. It was con- 
fided to me that the Germans had not 
lost their morale, judging from an 
officer captured the previous day, who, 
on cross-examination, said: "We may 
not be able to break through your line, 
but neither will you through ours." 

At the request of our hosts, camera 
shots of our party were taken at sev- 
eral points in the trench during the 
afternoon, the last time grouped with 
some of the soldiers. Shortly after this 

we bade adieu to Major B in com- 

[76] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

mand, who had been so accommodat- 
ing, and, reentering our two motors, 
took our departure from the firing line. 
Our lieutenant, who earlier in the day 
had arranged where we should lunch, 
carried us to a little inn for afternoon 
tea, where we found the other auto- 
mobiles awaiting us. 

When we resumed our journey the 
high speed at which each car was 
driven over the screened road already 
referred to was very noticeable. We 
simply tore along. The obvious deduc- 
tion seemed to be that, as it was now 
five o'clock, the Germans might begin 
firing at any time. Some one said our 
chaperon had an engagement and must 
be back on time. Be this as it may, I 
think he was glad to have us out of 
range. Very shortly after we had left 
[77] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

the screened road behind us, we came 
upon a long procession of munition 
wagons, lorries, artillerymen (with 
only a single gun, a soixante-quinze), 
which stretched halfway to Epernay. 
If their presence became known to the 
enemy, presumably they were fired on, 
for they formed a capital target. We 
never heard, of course, whether they 
passed safely or not. 

At Epernay our friend. Lieutenant 

D , took leave of us, announcing 

as a final courtesy that seats had been 
reserved for us in the dining-car. We 
were indebted to him for a most ab- 
sorbing day and shall always associate 
the French officer with his vigorous, 
engaging, modest personality. The 
train was full of soldiers returning 
from the front, but the accommoda- 
[78] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

tions were no less comfortable than in 
time of peace. We readied Paris be- 
fore ten o'clock and our first obliga- 
tion next morning was to call at the 
Bureau de la Presse in order to return 
our identity books and express grati- 
tude for the unusual privilege that had 
been accorded us. 



VIII 

My time, both before and after my 
visit to the front during the too brief 
ten days I was in Paris, was spent in 
familiarizing myself with relief work. 
Ordinary sight-seeing was out of the 
question for any one alive to the in- 
tensity of the situation beneath the 
prevalent surface brightness. Galler- 
ies were forgotten; I think that most 
of them were closed. I did go, of 
course, to Des Invalides to view the 
collection of German trophies in the 
wide courtyard, an interesting array 
including a Taube, parts of a Zeppelin, 
several coupoles for cannon-revolver 
(a sort of armored beehive with a pro- 
[80] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

truding gun) and a quantity of can- 
non, from the obusier of two hundred 
and fifty millimetres to the smallest 
sizes, lances-bombes, mitrailleuses, etc. 
There was also on exhibition a huge 
French biplane with two propellers, 
that had returned in a damaged con- 
dition after having been attacked. The 
size and eagerness of the crowd, includ- 
ing many soldiers, that danced attend- 
ance on these visible symbols of suc- 
cess, was impressive. I went also to 
Fontainebleau to pass the week-end 
with a friend, and here (as everywhere) 
a wing in each of three of the most an- 
cient and beautiful chateaux in France 
had been transformed into a hospital. 
Who would have guessed that the 
alert and seemingly care-free mistress 
of one of these, who sauntered with us 
[81] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

through her verdant alleys, had a hus- 
band and two sons at Verdun? 

Whatever may be said of the failure 
of American imagination as a whole 
to visualize the war, history will be 
forever proud of the corps of Ameri- 
can sympathizers who have lavishly 
contributed money or else laborious 
days to help save France. Though 
many statistics have been published 
concerning the relief work in Paris, 
one who can say, "I was there and this 
is what I saw," is often more appeal- 
ing than mere facts and figures. I had 
time to visit a few of the war charities, 
and should like to refer to them before 
I close. First of all to Mrs. Wharton's 
American Hostels for Refugees and 
Children of Flanders, which I was 
[ 82 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

given the opportunity to inspect 
thoroughly. As I have previously men- 
tioned, I was already one of her Boston 
committee; but of course at long range 
it had not been easy to get a clear-cut 
picture of all she has accomplished 
since the war began. To quote the last 
report, the Hostels have struggled 
through nearly two years of existence 
depending wholly on private support, 
and with the gifts collected they have 
helped over 13,000 destitute, hopeless 
people, cared for 12,000 sick persons, 
distributed over 69,000 garments, 
served 203,195 meals, and found em- 
ployment for nearly 6000 refugees. To 
do this costs about five thousand dol- 
lars a month, but much more remains 
to be done. The two most urgent 
problems to be dealt with are (1) De- 
[83] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

cent lodgings; (2) The isolation of the 
tuberculous. Three model lodging- 
houses have already been opened. In 
them have been fitted rooms accom- 
modating, as a rule, two adults or a mo- 
ther with two children. From eight to 
fifteen francs ($1.50 to $2.75) a month 
is charged for one of these rooms, 
light, heat, and washing included, and 
each house is under the supervision of 
a resident manager. It is hoped that 
several other houses of the same type 
may be opened. A sum of $20,000 is 
needed to go on with^this work, apart 
from the general expenses of the Hos- 
tels. As to tuberculosis, many of the 
refugees and especially the children 
have developed consumptive tenden- 
cies owing to the exposure and hard- 
ships they underwent in their flight 
[84] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

and to the misery in which they have 
since been living. A great number are 
still in the first stages of the disease 
and could be quickly cured by good air 
and proper diet; but there is not at 
this moment a free tuberculosis hos- 
pital for civilians open in France. In 
Mrs. Wharton's own words, "The 
greatest help that lovers of France can 
give her in her awful struggle is to try 
to remedy this deficiency. We need, 
and need at once, a big house in the 
country to accommodate at least one 
hundred patients; and we need forty 
thousand dollars to fit it up and run it. 
If we can get the house and the money, 
we can save many children for France; 
and France needs her children now as 
she has never needed them before." 



IX 

On the 'day after my arrival from 
England I went by motor with Mrs. 
Wharton to Saint-Ouen, just beyond 
one of the gates of Paris, to witness the 
confirmation of some two hundred Bel- 
gian little girls by the Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Paris at one of the six houses 
belonging to the Children of Flanders 
Rescue Committee. The building, 
which used to be a seminary, lent itself 
to the occasion by providing a room 
capable of holding comfortably the at- 
tendant clergy, some twenty Flemish 
nuns, the small group of visitors and 
the children, who, in stuff frocks, 
little straw hats precisely alike, and 
kneeling side by side in rows on low 
[86] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

benches, the youngest nearest to the 
altar, sat motionless as mice during 
the service and the cardinal's address, 
except when uttering the requisite re- 
sponses with impeccable uniformity. 
When the time came they left their 
benches in regular order, and, stepping 
noiselessly in single file with folded 
palms, between which each girl held a 
slip of paper marked with her name, ap- 
proached the cardinal to be anointed. 
They were presented in turn by Mrs. 
Royall Tyler, the vice-president of the 
Rescue Committee, to Cardinal Am- 
ette, a most benign and gracious digni- 
tary, and when the ceremony was fin- 
ished each stole demurely back to her 
seat, with closed eyes and folded hands. 
It was a touching and pathetic cere- 
mony. In the six houses the Children 
[87] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

of Flanders Committee is caring for 
about seven hundred and fifty chil- 
dren, one hundred and ^ve old men 
and women, and some sixty nuns (who 
superintend and teach the children); 
altogether over nine hundred people, 
all from the same narrow strip of shat- 
tered and ruined Belgium. 

After the religious exercises there 
was singing by the children in the 
outer hall, an address to the cardinal 
in French by one of the girls, the pre- 
sentation to him by a smaller child of 
an immense bouquet of "belles fleurs " 
with a couplet in verse, some patriotic 
words of thanks by the cardinal, at 
the close of which he exclaimed, "Vive 
la Belgique!" This delighted and in- 
spired the children, who retorted with 
"Vive le Cardinal!" so ardently that 
[88] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

he lingered at the door to add still an- 
other spirited word, as though their 
plight and the pathos of the occasion 
had touched him deeply. When Mrs. 
Wharton and I rode away a little later, 
the children, who had been let loose out 
of doors, waved their handkerchiefs at 
their benefactress and once more cried 
enthusiastically "Vive la Belgique!" 

It should be added that a lady who 
before the war was one of the chief 
movers in the revival of artistic lace- 
making in Belgium has organized lace 
schools in two of the Houses and the 
girls are being taught to make not 
merely one kind, but several kinds of 
lace, so as to render them independent 
of the middleman. 

Next day I was carried to see the 

[89] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

different Hostels by Mrs. Tyler, Mrs. 
Wharton's clear-headed and executive 
chief of staff, who has virtually de- 
voted every day for two years to super- 
intending them. First to Avenue Felix 
Faure, where there are about two 
hundred refugees, occupying some- 
times one room, sometimes two, for 
which they pay eight to fifteen francs 
per month, including gas, electric light 
and clean bed-linen twice a month, 
with use of the kitchen on the etage in 
common — decent, nice-mannered folk 
who seemed very contented and very 
grateful. I talked with an elderly and 
decrepit, but still alert old couple, who 
described to us their escape from the 
German invasion. Across the entry 
was a stranded young mother with her 
baby in its crib. All able-bodied men 
[90] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

and women in a position to earn a liv- 
ing are eliminated after they have been 
put in the way of getting work. Then to 
19 Rue de la Quintine, where free fur- 
nished lodgings are provided for women 
with large families of young children. 
Here again the inmates who had 
been rescued from privation and filth 
beamed at us from their wash tubs, 
ironing-boards and kitchen stoves. One 
family of thirteen was neatly housed in 
two rooms. The tenants are expected 
to contribute a little each month for 
their accommodation and almost inva- 
riably they do. The French Govern- 
ment does not pay the soldiers and 
allows only 1.25 francs per day to the 
wives of those at the front, with fifty 
centimes for each child under sixteen. 
I was told that these people were in a 
[91] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

pitiable plight before they were taken 
in. Only about fifteen per cent of the 
women now helped by the Hostels are 
Belgians; the rest are refugees from 
the invaded French provinces. 

From here we went to the Rue 
Taitbout, where there is a restaurant, 
free clinic and dispensary^ workroom 
for women and reading-room, all un- 
der the same roof — a busy place, I 
can assure you, and most orderly. I 
talked with the pleasant-faced doctor 
who keeps an eye on all these people. 
The rooms where the women eat, — 
coming either from their work up- 
stairs or outside, — with little tables 
holding six each, were very inviting. 
There are about thirty-five hundred 
helped by the Hostels and nine hun- 
[ 92] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

dred children by the Children of 
Flanders. I visited also the Day Nur- 
sery and clothing depot on the Rue 
Boissy d'Anglas, the grocery store 
at 67 Rue Pierre Charron, where 
coal and other supplies are furnished 
on proper vouchers, and "Le Comite 
dentellier Belge-Franco-Americain," 
25 Rue de Crouchet, where the lace 
made by the Children of Flanders is 
sold. 

Another busy charity which seemed 
to me admirably conducted — one well 
known to many Americans — was 
the American Relief Clearing House, 
the initials of which form the word 
"Arch." The boast that it is indeed 
the keystone to all the other oeuvres is 
well founded, for it is through this or- 
ganization that virtually all the gifts 
[93] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

which come from the United States 
are distributed in France. To the 
American Relief Clearing House has 
been accorded ocean transport by the 
Compagnie Generale Trans-atlantique 
free customs entry, and also by the 
Government free transport on all rail- 
roads in France. At the instance of my 
friend Walter Abbott, who is the pre- 
siding spirit and fountain of authority 
at its offices 5 Rue Frangois Premier, 
I was taken on a tour of inspection by 
Mr. James R. Barbour (Yale 1900),— 
observe this tribute from a Harvard 
pen, — the vigorous master of trans- 
portation, who is responsible for the 
prompt and accurate handling of every 
shipment from America, a service to 
which he has devoted all his energies 
with indefatigable zeal since the incep- 
[94 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

tion of the enterprise. I viewed the 
quai at the railroad station entirely re- 
served for the Clearing House, also 
the warehouses — there are four in all, 
two in the Rue Pierre Charron, two in 
the new barracks near the Porte- 
Dauphine — where huge cases and the 
crates and boxes are received, opened, 
repacked, and forwarded. Up to the 
present time the Clearing House has 
received on behalf of itself and others 
about fifty thousand cases, bales, and 
packages and forwarded another fifty 
thousand, their contents ranging from 
a dozen to twelve hundred articles and 
comprising "great bales of cotton, ab- 
sorbent and not absorbent; clothes 
for men, women and children; under- 
wear, socks, shoes, hospital garments, 
bandages, gauze, surgical instruments, 
[95] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

and over one hundred other useful and 
valuable gifts." At one of the ware- 
houses we lingered to examine two 
auto-wagons that had just arrived 
from America — the one a present 
from New York, the other from Chi- 
cago sympathizers, and each, so I was 
told, a most timely and serviceable 
donation. 

Not far from my hotel were the 
bright, compact new quarters of the 
American Fund for French Wound- 
ed, Alcazar d'Ete, Avenue Gabriel, 
Champs-Ely sees. All articles con- 
signed to it from America are here 
delivered forthwith by the American 
Relief Clearing House. Whoever 
studies the map of France to-day finds 
it so dotted with hospitals as to rival 
[96] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

the starry heavens, yet there are few 
of these hospitals that have not re- 
ceived direct assistance from this 
source. As I watched the diligent and 
systematic voluntary workers busy 
amid the never-ceasing ebb and flow of 
things arriving, and things to be un- 
packed, sorted and sent away, it was 
easy to credit the figures of the 
preceding month — "cases received 
1034; bales and cases despatched, 803; 
hospital articles and dressings des- 
patched, 357,475." "Do you require 
any more assistance.^" I inquired of 
one of the chief officials. "Oh, yes," 
she replied, "as packers and drivers — 
girls content with a steady task; but 
send us no more women eager for 
picturesque work and to be *near the 
soul of the war.'" 

[ 97 ] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

It is difficult to get away from 
France without giving eight days' 
notice. The- French authorities re- 
serve the right to keep one waiting in 
order to make inquiries. One whose 
time is limited should immediately 
after arrival apply for leave to depart. 
Here again I was fortunate, for my 
friends were able to persuade the Chef 
Adjoint de la Surete Municipale that 
one who had been granted permission 
to visit the trenches was not likely to 
be an enemy of the Republic. The ur- 
bane official, whose ever-vigilant eye 
and feline mouth suggested, neverthe- 
less, a handsome tiger in repose, looked 
me over with a glance, and pres- 
ently I departed with my passport 
vise. 

As I stood on the deck of an Ameri- 

[ 98] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

can liner from Liverpool a week later, 
I found myself almost regretful to be 
returning to my native land. Despite 
the underlying horror and distress to 
which I had been privy, I would gladly 
have lingered under the spell of the un- 
daunted and wonderfully resourceful 
spirit of the two peoples among whom 
I had passed the summer, and I felt a 
little impatient at the thought of lis- 
tening to conservative phrases, such as 
"God be praised, we are out of this 
war!" or its hard-headed counterpart, 
"What concern is it of ours? " I had 
seen a great deal that was interesting 
and that I should never forget; yet, as 
I reviewed my visit, the concrete fac- 
tors seemed to dwindle and the impres- 
sion that remained was one of soul 
rather than of substance. It is not so 
[99] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

much what one sees or can see over 
there that is moving as what one feels 
to exist; not so much the endless chain 
of marvellous production, unique in 
the annals of history, as the silent 
exaltation which transmutes univer- 
sal suffering into fresh forms of na- 
tional energy. England and France 
are fighting for their lives, but it is the 
quality of their fortitude that appeals 
to the imagination of the onlooker. 
One does not doubt that they will win 
in the end; not merely because their 
latent resources are greater, but be- 
cause of the intensity of their convic- 
tion that the fate of democratic lib- 
erty hinges on the outcome of the 
titanic struggle and that death would 
be preferable to the collapse of the 
moral forces of civilization. The fail- 
[100] 



THEIR SPIRIT 

ure of the American people as a 
whole to appreciate this is the real 
indictment which Europe has against 
them. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: jiiu 'v 

PreservationTechnologie? 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



